Notes: Phish continued their tradition of breaking out new songs at the beginning of a tour; Trey announced after Dogs Stole Things that the band had written 15-16 new songs in the last eight weeks and that they would debuting many of them at this show. The show featured the debuts of Dogs Stole Things, Limb By Limb, Wading in the Velvet Sea, Water in the Sky, Vultures, Ghost and Olivia’s Pool as well as the Phish debuts of Stand and Izabella. Stash was preceded by a Tequila tease. Chalk Dust was unfinished. Character Zero included a Jean Pierre tease from Trey.

these dublin shows are a ton of fun. of course, going into the u.s. summer tour in '97 these were great tapes to pass around so all the fans could get a taste of the new tunes.

theme from the bottom was a good opener, and it was very well-played. dog stole things seemed to be very promising, but it really didn't ever do too much. beauty of my dreams was some nice snappy blue grass. billy made for a nice breather. limb by limb made a promising debut. fish still had not nailed the drum beat, but he does a damn fine job here. trey sounds strong here too. they bust the first jam of the night with the newly revamped wolfman's brother. this was is not the best, but it still has some nice funky grooves. velvet sea provides another breather and it sets up a fine set closing taste.

stash gets the second set going in fine form. this is, as usual, a nice dark jam, and trey brings it home nicely. maze keeps that deep dark vibe going before a nice light and bouncy water in the sky. this and vultures debut well. in fact, outside of ghost, i think vultures may be my favorite of the dublin debuts. after some new material, the boys delve back into their old bag of tricks for a really nice slave to the traffic light. page has some lovely playing on this one. chalk dust hits a nice funk/rock jam that works well into the debut of phish classic ghost. olivia's pool or oblivious fool or hell whatever you want to call it, works very well out of ghost. they flash their new funk muscles on this pairing. i'm not a big character zero fan, but who cares after a show loaded with new music.

then, this is one of my favorite encores. it's no vegas '96 but hey. i'm a huge sly and the family stone fan, and i would love to hear stand make a triumphant return. phish played this one really well, and they really nail the big "stand break down." as if that weren't enough, let's debut another nice soul/funk/rock classic. they rip right into hendrix's izabella, and they certainly do this one justice. it would never become a regular part of the rotation, but it came up in some key spots in key shows. in particular, if you like izabella, check out columbus '98 and auburn hills '97. both of these shows are stellar.

while this show does not have any completely mind blowing jams, the boys are full of energy springing a bunch of new material on the audience. ghost and limb by limb would really develop in the next two years, and vultures, in my opinion, has remained a lovely treat to get at any show. i love listening to these shows just to demonstrate how far phish has come....

This show is important for historic reasons with all the debuts (First LxL! First Ghost! First Izabella!), and is a nice show, but it's far from an essential addition to your collection. It's a transitional show -- they've mastered the Billy Breathes material (Theme, Billy, and Taste are all excellent) and are just getting their feet wet with the SotG material. They also start to bring a little of the funk that would explode later that year. Check out the unfinished Chalkdust jam that eerily hearkens back to the Wolfman's from the epic 3/1/97 show that would later be parsed into Slip Stitch and Pass -- but instead of -> JJLC, we get -> Ghost [debut]. Nice. Did I mention this is the first Izabella?

Oh, and @pnumatic, I don't think that's a Frankenstein tease. That's how that Sly and the Family Stone song goes. Pull it up on YouTube and skip to about 2:20...

This is perhaps the funkiest Chalk Dust Torture out there. The jam immediately abandons normal Chalk Dust fodder and slows down into funk-town. The segue into the debut of Ghost is flawless and the following debut of the short-lived Olivia's Pool is nice too. That 20 minute stretch of the second set is the only part of the show that really begs listening, but the rest of this debut filled show is a hoot as well. The other major highlight for me is the debut of Water in the Sky, one of my favorite mellow non-jam Phish songs, I just love it.

The show is loads of fun, but for all intents and purposes inessential. Listen at your leisure, no need to rush to this one.

Nothing spectacular here except for two highlights. The first is the fantastic Theme opener. What a way to open a tour! Trey hits the high notes several times and the rest of the crew never misses a beat. The second is the mass amount of new songs getting played for the first time. Even though some of them feel a little shaky at times, the chalk dust torture segue into ghost is out of this world. Top notch segue right there! Definitely check out the theme, otherwise, move on.

although the forshadowing clouds in the sky vaguely reading "phish" the day prior (6/12), the famed 6/13 occurance, regardless of what skeptics have to say about the remainder of 1997, was countdown and liftoff. trey and page's spontanteous combustion of musical genius was something to behold, striking the flint with a force to be reckoned with that i knew, deep down, would rebirth in a mere 3 years

IMO, this show is just alright. a highlight, in my opinion, is the first set mid energy NICO. too bad trey forgot 8 verses in cavern and mike fell asleep during that not too special formula failure YEM

fucking mike, sometimes mistakes his hair for one of those dual night time eye patchesand nods of during not very special lulls in YEm

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